How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America

Essays

By: Kiese Laymon

Narrated by: Kevin Free

Author and essayist Kiese Laymon is one of the most unique, stirring, and powerful new voices in American social and cultural commentary. How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America is a collection of Laymon's essays, touching on subjects ranging from family, race, violence, and celebrity to music, writing, and coming of age in the rural Mississippi Gulf Coast. Laymon's writing is unflinchingly honest, while also being smart, lacerating, and unexpectedly funny.

In How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, Laymon deals in depth with his own personal story, which is filled with trials that illuminate under-appreciated aspects of contemporary American life. As revealed in the audiobook's title essay, Laymon attended three colleges before earning his undergraduate degree. He was suspended from the first of these institutions, Millsaps College, following a probationary period resulting from a controversial essay he published on campus. As the school's president described it, the "Key Essay in question was written by Kiese Laymon, a controversial writer who consistently editorializes on race issues."

Controversy seemed to follow this young writer, but as he himself puts it, "my job is to ask questions, to broaden the scope of American literature by broadening the scope of who is written to and imaginatively writes back." Laymon voice is something new and unexpected in contemporary American writing, mixing a colloquial voice with acerbic wit, sharp insights, and blast-furnace heat that calls to mind no one so much as a black 21st-century Mark Twain. Much like Twain, Laymon's writing is steeped in controversial issues both private and public. From his biting critiques of race politics to revelations of his own internal struggles with American "blackness", Laymon taps into an ongoing conversation that is played out consciously and subconsciously across all of our artistic, cultural, political, and economic realities.

©2013 Kiese Laymon (P)2014 Audible Inc.

truly amazing

I have nothing but good things to say about this collection of essays, everything was so moving. I do find it offensive that the narrator didn't bother pronouncing Kiese correctly the whole book... can't they re-record this? at least the moments when he says the author's name?

Please pronounce Kiese correctly

I’m grateful for an audio version of Kiese’s book but can the performer please re-record and pronounce his name correctly? Ki-e-say

I laughed. I cried. I amen’d.

Read this if you’re Black to wax nostalgic. Read this if you’re not to get a dose of humanity.

I'm Stunned By This Collection

I am stunned by this collection of personal essays, and trying to figure out why I haven't been hearing more about it.

Kiese Laymon is a black writer who grew up in Mississippi, and here he excavates much of the pain he's endured throughout his life — an uncle's drug addiction and premature death, a racially charged incident that got him kicked out of college, police encounters with blackness as the only probable cause, working with a black editor who ultimately dropped him for being "too black, too racial," and just generally trying to find his way as a southern black man in a white New York world.

A recurring theme in this collection is black men learning how to offer love and friendship to other black men, which I found very moving. There's also a self-deprecating quality to many of the essays that felt very raw and real to me. This is a man who knows self-doubt, depression, and suicidal thoughts, and here he lays it all bare.

Kiese Laymon is also just a brilliant, witty, rule-breaking writer. There were a few essays that felt a bit out of place — like on pop culture icons Kanye West and Bernie Mac — but DAMN those essays were also super good. His writing on southern blackness in music, art, and culture is fascinating and made me think about Beyoncé and Outkast in a whole new light.

I loved this collection and hope it will keep bubbling up into mainstream consciousness.

Brilliant

I'm a huge fan of Mr. Laymon's work. His writing is thought-provoking and immersive. I found myself listening to several chapters more than once, to make sure I don't miss anything. Specifically, his explanation of "the worst of White folks," and his descriptions of Michael Jackson and Bernie Mac were perfectly accurate. I enjoyed these essays and looks forward to reading more Mr. Laymon.

Elevated Consciousness

Layman’s ability to convey externally an insightfully internal authenticity has inspired me. I experienced a sense of elevated consciousness after reading/ listening to this book. It challenged to continue to honestly conceptualize and grapple with my own life experiences and different life roles (mother, wife, doctoral student, counselor, teacher, daughter, sister, friend, minister). I am gratefully intrigued

Brilliant body of work. Masterful, even!

I just wish Kiese would have narrated. This narrator didn't do our southern, colloquial language justice.

Wow.

So great. I can't wait to get his next book. Never read anything like this before. Unique writing voice. Unique message.

Eye opening, very moving

What do you say when you hear something so moving, so eye opening? This book perfectly articulates how it’s easy to go from living your life to dead. How someone with ambitions, their entire future ahead of them is treated by white folks like they are disposable. How Black folks become to see themselves as disposable.

Black people are just like everyone else, just trying to be their best selfs in America and America treats them like they are disposable.

It will open your eyes, make you cry and put you in the shoes of those unarmed black children who were killed for being black. It does a lot more to give you insight into the lives of young black men.

Incredible.

Read, listen, and be ready to be challenged and, hopefully, transformed. This is not hyperbole; this is honestly writ large. Absolutely, positively brilliant.